The Facebook Moments App Not Available in Europe Right Now

The Facebook Moments app will not be released in the EU until the giant social networking site produces a viable way for customers to opt-into its face identification function. Facebook is not providing its new photo-sharing app Moments in the European countries because of the Union regulators’ issues about its facial-recognition tech innovation, as the EU officials have stated these days.

The Moments app, which was released previously during this week in the U.S., allows customers to independently share pictures with their friends without publishing them on Facebook. The application uses facial-recognition algorithms to identify individuals and group the photos based on who is in each picture.

Moments categorizes the images on your phone depending on when they were taken and, using the face identification technologies, which of your friends are in these. You can then independently synchronize those images quickly with particular buddies, and they can select to synchronize their images with yours as well.

It is hard to get the images your acquaintances have taken of you, and each one of them always demands on getting that same group photo taken with several mobile phones to make sure they get a duplicate. When you go to the weddings, for example, there are so many people getting great pictures throughout the day.

You all want a fast way to share the images with the people who are in them, and receive images that you are in exchange. The same is true for the smaller activities too, like a canoe trip or an evening out. The new program allows customers to make groups that synchronize images with friends.

Richard Allan, Facebook’s chief of policy in European countries, said that Facebook must achieve a contract with its regulators in Ireland on how to provide this technology to citizens of the European Union.

The regulators have informed them that Facebook has to give an opt-in feature to clients to do this, as Allan has written in an email. The company does not have an opt-in procedure so it is turned off until they create one.

There is no set schedule for developing such a procedure, Allan included in his message to the press. Technology-news website The Register previously revealed that Moments is not yet available in the EU countries. A Facebook spokesperson did not want to comment on when the app will be available in there regions too.

Facebook’s wider privacy methods have come under observation in the European countries. This week, Belgium’s information-protection watchdog sued the company over the use of “like” or “share” buttons to monitor Internet users’ actions outside its website. At the same time, the European Union’s 28 participants accepted a set up of a long-debated EU law that would increase regulators’ influence over technical companies, like Facebook.

Facial-recognition programs, also known as “faceprint” technologies, have had a bumpy reception in the European countries and, on a smaller level, in the U.S. The technological innovation works by checking a picture of someone and evaluating their facial features against a large database of other face scans. The moral difficulties of face identification are only increasing as the technology’s abilities become even more innovative.

In the late 2010, Facebook released a function, switched on by default, which used this technology to recognize individuals in pictures on its website. A couple of years ago, the social network has taken out the function from the EU after a review by Irish authorities.

Other technical companies and govt departments use these technologies as well, such as the U.S. Division of Homeland Security or the FBI. Google has presented an app last month, named Google Photos, that makes use of facial-recognition programs to identify people in images. A Google spokesperson said that the app is available worldwide, but its facial-recognition functions are available only in USA.

Earlier this week, a number of privacy organizations, such as the US Civil Liberties Union or the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have withdrawn from discussions with the U.S. govt departments targeted at a “code of conduct” regarding the facial-recognition technological innovation. However, some of the rules are still debated strongly among the members, the opinions being divided, even at this level.

At the most basic level, individuals should be able to simply walk down on a public street without worrying that companies they have never heard of are monitoring their every action –and knowing them by name – by using the face identification programs, as the organizations said in a combined declaration. Unfortunately, we have been incapable to reach an agreement even with that primary, particular assumption.

A representative for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the branch of the Business Division that was conducting the discussions, said that his organization was “disappointed” in the drawback, saying the processes have made “good progresses” and will continue with “the stakeholders who would want to join.

Share this:

About Fred Mitchell

I like midnight surfing and going for jogs at sunrise with my my golden retriever, Charlie. When I'm not studying Russian literature or reading Dostoievski, you can find me playing video games like Witcher 3 or Battlefield Hardline, or hanging out in Starbucks sipping an Americano. I never leave the house without my phone and saying I am a social media addict would definitely not be an understatement.